Page 52 of Raising Love
I lowered my attention to my crotch and asked, “Really? Now you wanna firm up?”
“What’s that, sir?” my driver asked from the front of the car.
I chuckled, lifting my hand and holding it within sight. “Nothing, Greg. I’m just back here trippin’ is all.”
He chuckled, removing his eyes off the rearview and focusing on the road up ahead.
Because I had to be trippin’, wanting to do any of the shit Ivy and I did that night again.
We did need to talk about it, though. Since that night, I have been busy, and so has she, barely seeing each other around the house…
Or were we avoiding each other?
TWELVE
ivy
I took a seat at the kitchen table and immediately melted into the chair cushion. And not in a good way. My head was heavy, so were my limbs and my eyes. I lifted the cup of coffee I’d just brewed to my lips, taking a slow sip of the hot caffeine, moaning a little at the bite of heat against my tongue and the instant gratification of tasting the robust, sweet coffee.
It was almost 9 p.m., and I’d officially been up for an entire 24 hours. The night before, Baby Love had very choppy sleep. Teething had hit us unexpectedly and was messing with his sleep pattern. He was officially three months old that day. I thought teething happened when they got older. Baby Love’s visiting doctor told me I was correct, but in some cases, some babies start teething at the three-month mark. And God, I wish Baby Love wasn’t “some babies.”
The night before was a horror show. Me, home alone with a baby that wouldn’t settle down and stop crying unless I was holding him. Thankfully, I remembered the teething essentials Baby Love’s grandparents provided Leo and me with when we first brought him home from the hospital. The teething essentials were packed in a gift basket with other things we could use now and later. I thought it was a bit much, but that proved to be incorrect.
I’d finally gotten him settled down a few minutes prior. He just kept bringing his little fingers to his gums and biting down whenever he wasn’t hollering at the top of his lungs.
I dropped my head into my hand and smoothed my fingers against the inner corners of my eyes.
Even light was too much for me at that hour, which was why I was sitting in the kitchen in the dark. I needed to sit in the dark, as tired as my eyes were.
This was the first moment throughout the day that I had gotten some reprieve. I planned to do some recording earlier today, then decided I’d take care of it tonight after putting Baby Love to sleep, but dammit, I was too tired to lift a camera, much less record a video that would be half as interesting as the one that garnered so much attention previously.
I heard Leo chuckling as he stepped down the stairs behind me.
“Of course, baby,” Leo said, his voice growing louder as he drew near to the kitchen. “I should be out there in the next hour.”
I turned to look at him just as he stepped into the kitchen, switching on the light.
I cringed, turning away from the overhead light in my seat at the kitchen table to cover my eyes with my fingers.
He laughed before the room lit up, then he quickly stopped, saying into the phone, “I’m about to head out now. I’ll call you in the car.”
I inhaled a deep breath and let it out really slowly through my nose.
Then there was that. Leo and his bullshit.
We had sex. I could finally allow myself to put a name to what happened that night. You wouldn’t even know we had sex the way he’s been walking around here, avoiding me.
“I didn’t know you were down here,” he said low, taking quick steps to the fridge. “I just needed some water.”
He smelled good. Looked even better. In all black, his designer wool coat and Chelsea boots already on. No different than the way he was smelling and looking the night before… and the night before that. And the night before that...
Every night since the hookup in his bedroom, Leo had been going out. With Vanessa.
I tucked my lips into my mouth to rub, trying my hardest to get rid of the feeling that thought elicited whenever I thought about him going out with her and what he was doing with her.
I really shouldn’t have cared, but somehow I did… now.
“You waiting for a burglar or something?”
